I hope you never have to experience this yourself nor experience it with a close friend on a more and more frequently occurring basis until finally on their last “withdrawl” you hold there hands while they die.
A true alcoholic is an addict and cannot function without alcohol in their system. Eventually, even a short period of time without alcohol continuously being ingested will induce DT’s and the very real possibility of death. Its far more complex than the simplistic notion of detoxification. A true alcoholic is no-longer drinking to get high; He's drinking to avoid severe discomfort which the alcoholic knows will eventually kill him.
Chronic intake of alcohol affects several neurotransmitter systems in the brain. These effects include (1) increased release of endogenous opiates; (2) activation of the inhibitory gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABA-A) receptor producing increased GABA inhibition, with a resultant influx of chloride ions; (3) up-regulation of the postsynaptic N -methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) type of glutamate receptor, which mediates the postsynaptic excitatory effects of glutamate; and (4) interactions with serotonin and dopamine receptors.
During withdrawal from alcohol, the loss of GABA-A receptor stimulation causes a reduction in chloride flux and is associated with tremors, diaphoresis, tachycardia, anxiety, and seizures. In addition, the lack of inhibition of the NMDA receptors may lead to seizures and delirium. Excessive nervous system excitability during periods of abstinence from alcohol is related to the effect of alcohol on the number and function of brain receptors.
I will admit that the damage of drinking for most people is at first self induced and can be stopped merely by never taking another drink. There is a point however that an individual reaches - a line crossed so to speak - that takes one from free will into the world of addiction. It is very difficult and can be deadly to cross back over the line and back in to a life of sobriety. One drink can and most likely will return an individual back to addiction in a very short period of time. I've seen it in my life dozens of times.
Alcohol is one of the few drugs in which the withdrawal process itself can cause death and I'm not talking about suicide! The actual DT withdrawals can kill. No one has ever died from withdrawal or detoxification from heroin unless it was self inflicted. The same cannot be said for alcohol. The alcholic reaches the point where they are physically more sick without alcohol than with alcohol and eventually sick either way. The later is often the point of no return. A person can quit drinking for years and one drink will rapidly ( ie within a matter of weeks ) take a person back to the level of disease they had when the quit.
Here is a simplistic example. Hepatitus C for the most part is also entirely self induced and can be avoided buy limiting sexual partners and not sharing needles. But once you got Hep C you got it. You might share needles 100 times or boink 100 women. But once you've got it; you've got and you've got it for life. You might get Hep C from your first tryst or your next; You might get it from your first fix or your next. But once you got it; Game over! Alcoholism is literally a game of Russian roulette and no one knows whether they are genetically predisposed to it or when they've self induced it from abuse for the most part until it's to late.
You can argue the semantics of the word “desease” and "detox" all day long. Until you've been in the trenches with people who suffer from it - your full of sh#$. If you have witnessed the process and still don't believe it then drink up! You can experience it for yourself; Call me when you need someone to hold your hand. I was so blessed and so fortunate; I crossed the line of no return only once and returned. My experience was easy compared to most.
Years ago I buried a friend who I began drinking with in 1974. All of us new that there was something different about him. He was an alcoholic from his first drink to his last and there was nothing anyone could do to stop its progress. Even He knew!. He was an alcoholic from a metabolic perspective before he had his first drink of ethanol!His brain was wired differently than most people and every drink rewired it in destructive ways!
The only way I can describe it is that he metabolised alcohol differently than most people and became addicted to it almost from his first drink and remained addicted to it until his last. He was physiologically incapable of metabolising alcohol like most normal people. There are numerous ethnic groups for which alcohol consumption is a very bad idea. We scattered my friends ashes on the Chesapeake Bay. It was his favourite place in the world.
I post this because it's truly a matter of life and death. Arguing over words like disease, withdrawal, detox, lack of will power, lack of character etc. is a waste of time. There is one and only one guaranteed cure to however you want to characterize alcoholism and that is to never take another drink! Period.
Arguments over semantics have killed to many of my friends in a life or death matter where semantics become irrelevant!
Signed Been there done that! I would not wish what I've experienced or witnessed upon my worst enemy.
See my post 49.
“Alcoholism is a malady; that something is dead wrong with us physically; that our reaction to alcohol has changed; that something has been very wrong with us emotionally; that our alcoholic habit has become an obsession, a obsession which can no longer reckon even with death itself. Once firmly set, one is not able to turn it aside. In other words, a sort of allergy of the body which guarantees that we shall die if we drink, an obsession of the mind which guarantees that we shall go on drinking. Such has been the alcoholic dilemma time out of mind, and it is altogether probable that even of those alcoholics who did not wish to go on drinking, not more than five out of one hundred have ever been able to stop before A.A.” Bill Wilson (Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June 1945).